Learn the practice of mindfulness in a 6-week course led by Bill Brooks, a certified meditation teacher through the Meditation Teacher Training Institute. This experience is only $15 and participants who attend five or more sessions will receive that money back in the form of a UMW bookstore gift card.

If you are interested, please register online soon. The group will meet on Tuesdays beginning Feb. 21 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in Trinkle B-39, the Leidecker Center for Asian Studies. For questions about this course, please e-mail Brittanie Haas, assistant director of Campus Recreation, at bhaas@umw.edu.

The 3rd Annual UMW Mindfulness Week will take place during the week of Mon., Sept. 28-Fri. Oct. 2nd, and will feature a variety of workshops and lectures on the theme of Mindfulness. All events are free and are open to UMW faculty, students, and staff. The keynote lecture on Fri. Oct. 2nd is also open to the public.

Bhante Seelananda of the Bhavana Society of West Virginia, a Buddhist monastery, provides an introduction to mindfulness, an overview of some of the benefits of mindfulness, discussion of the 21st century challenges for being mindful, and strategies for incorporating mindfulness into daily life.

Take a pause from your busy routine — give yourself the gift of silent reflection. This Mindfulness Week event will help you touch your natural ability to meditate. You will have the opportunity to participate in guided meditations, to receive instruction on meditation and how to practice, and to ask questions and discuss your meditation experience. This event is suitable for beginning and experienced meditators.

This presentation explores the geography of spaces of contemplation throughout history and how geographers study these unique sites. It also demonstrates how individuals might become more attuned to their own spaces of contemplation and what makes these sites inspire mindfulness.

Looking for a way to re-energize as the weekend nears? Join us on Ball Circle for a mindful yoga practice under the open sky. Bringing a quality of mindfulness, present moment awareness, to the practice of yoga unifies and enriches our experience of body, breath and mind. And it feels good too! This event is open to those new to yoga, and to those experienced. Bring your yoga mat if you have one. Mats will be available at the event if you don’t.

Can learning be transformed into one giant, on-going art project, infused with ‘the pleasure of finding things out’ (R. Feynman) as its central activity? Come explore this essential question in an interactive, hands-on workshop that offers experiences for cultivating greater present-moment awareness, objectivity, curiosity and humor through an acquaintance with the creative process – not just for art department students & faculty – everyone welcome!

Originating in Indian Buddhism 2500 years ago and applied in the pursuit of enlightenment, mindfulness meditation is now increasingly popular in Western mainstream culture. After several decades of rigorous scientific research, it has been secularized and successfully adapted for use within clinical, therapeutic, educational, creative, and corporate contexts. This lecture introduces the long history and traditional intent of mindfulness, then surveys the active ingredients and psychological mechanisms that make it so effective in such diverse fields today. A special focus will be the integration of mindfulness practices into psychotherapy for the alleviation of depression, anxiety, addiction, and other mental health issues.
For more information, go to: http://meditation.umwblogs.org or contact Prof. Angela Pitts, apitts2@umw.edu, (540) 654-1338